American Botanical Art and American Floral Art: other valuable online resources

American Botanical Art

and American Floral Art

Other valuable online resources

(above: Martin Johnson Heade, Roses, 1876, oil on board, 15 1/4 x 12 3/4 inches, Christie's. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

American Botanical Art is a 2025 text by ChatGPT which says: "American botanical art is a story of natural wonder and human ingenuity, woven into the cultural tapestry of the nation over centuries. This art form began as early settlers, explorers, and indigenous peoples encountered an immense diversity of plant life in the New World, and their subsequent depictions of this flora unfolded as both scientific inquiry and aesthetic celebration... Today, American botanical art holds a cherished position among collectors, historians, and nature enthusiasts alike. Exhibitions in galleries and museums celebrate its historical legacy while contemporary artists forge new pathways, expanding the boundaries of the genre. Whether executed in painstaking detail or interpreted through modern abstraction, botanical art remains a vibrant dialogue between humanity and nature -- a dialogue that captures the perpetual cycle of discovery, growth, and renewal. Thus, the history of American botanical art is a narrative of exploration and transformation. From early, hand-drawn studies intended to catalog new species to modern reinterpretations that embody cultural and environmental narratives, botanical art has continuously reflected both the scientific progress and the artistic spirit of a nation deeply connected to its natural heritage. Accessed 4/25

American Society of Botanical Artists Accessed 4/14

Avant Gardens is a 2019 exhibit at the Newport Art Museum which says: "Collectively, the artists of "Avant Gardens" build upon and reinvigorate the long-standing tradition in art of investigating beauty, nature, and society through depictions of the garden." Accessed 7/19

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World is a 2018 exhibit at the Spencer Museum of Art / University of Kansas which says: "Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World explores humankind's deep connections and fascination with the plant kingdom through artworks from the Spencer Museum's permanent collection, a number of significant loans, and site-specific commissions by four artists-in-residence: Ackroyd & Harvey, Sandy Winters, and Mathias Kessler." Presentation includes 155-page online exhibit catalog. Accessed 5/18

Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora is a 2019 exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum which says: "From saguaro cactus of the Southwest, big-leaf maple of the West Coast, and bloodroot spanning the Midwest to bottlebrush buckeye of the Eastern Seaboard, this exhibition features artworks of America's native plants." Also see info from American Society of Botanical Artists and from Botanical Art Worldwide Accessed 11/19

Burchfield Botanicals is a 2017 exhibit at the Huntsville Museum of Art which says: "Between the years 1908 and 1911, American artist Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967) created nearly 500 botanical sketches that illustrated the different wildflowers and plants he found in the forests and fields around his childhood home in Salem, Ohio. Using books from the local library, Burchfield identified and documented these plants along with the locations where he found them. The artist's fascination with plant life would remain strong throughout his career. Many of the wildflowers he recorded during those early years would show up again and again in paintings, and some would be included in the titles of works." To read more after exhibit closes, go to "Past Exhibitions" section of museum website. Accessed 6/17

Christine Neill: Observations from the Valley Floor is a 2019 exhibit at the American University Museum which says: "Christine Neill is a nationally celebrated American artist whose work blends motifs of biological examination with visual processes and techniques." Accessed 10/20

David Pettibone: Year with a Tree is a 2017 exhibit at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center which says: "The project takes the form of numerous watercolor and oil paintings which investigate, in detail, a single tree at the Eagle River Nature Center from May 11, 2016, to May 11, 2017, and how the changing of the seasons affects the tree." Also see artist's website Accessed 12/17

A Decade of Paintings, 2000-2010: Selected Works by Michael M. Strueber, an exhibit held January 28 - June 11, 2011 at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art. Includes exbibit brochure. Accessed April, 2015.

Gail Roberts: Color Field is a 2022 exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art. The artist says: "There are now over 130 paintings of singular flowers in the Color Field series, all the same size (20" x 24"), and completed over a five year period. Color Field refers to the visible color range in nature and the paintings are ordered by hue and exhibited as one continuous spectrum. Stepping outside my door, the natural environment has been a guiding and humbling springboard for my studio practice as a painter." Also see the website of the artist. Accessed 9/22

Garden of Biotanical Delights: Diane Kempler is a 2017 exhibit at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University which says: "Although Diane Kempler and Hieronymus Bosch work in different media and are, forgive the obvious, from vastly different cultural eras, there is something about Kempler's wildly gesturing ceramic forms that are reminiscent of Bosch's passionately overpopulated paintings." Accessed 11/17

Gathering Light: The Art of Stephen Hannock, an exhibit featuring artists depicting images of trees, held March 31 - July 8, 2012 at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. Includes curator's essay. Accessed May, 2014

James Brewer: Garden Symphonies is a 2020 exhibit at the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art which says: "Bone Creek has curated this collection of vibrant Midwestern perennials: zinnias, sunflowers, iris and daylilies that cover all edges of the canvas. The fragrance is almost palpable. Some paintings are treated with a greater attention to realism than others." Accessed 11/20

James Prosek: Un-Natural History, October 21, 2011 - January 27, 2012 from Bellarmine Museum of Art. Accessed 4/14

Karen Kitchel: Grasslands is a 2019 exhibit at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art which says: "Known for her sensitive and meticulously rendered paintings, Karen Kitchel challenges herself to express her concern for the environment by painting grasses in a variety of sizes." Also see artist's website Accessed 2/19

Kristin Leachman: Longleaf Lines is a 2022 exhibit at the Georgia Museum of Art which says: "Longleaf Lines represents part two of Leachman's Fifty Forests project, which she began in 2010 in her adopted home state of California to document the self-organizing patterns in trees. The project is taking Leachman to various forested and deforested sites, protected and unprotected lands, in each of the 50 U.S. states. By transcribing the unspoken language of trees' structural integrity and biological resilience, Leachman explores the intersection of painting and the natural world." Accessed 9/22

Lillian Klein Abensohn; Song of Songs: Fruitful Relationships is a 2023 exhibit at the American University Museum which says: Initially, the artist considered reproduction as the most important aspect of life, and she explored this idea in various compositions of fruits and vegetables as allegories. Gradually, however, she realized that the compositions were of relationships, juxtapositions of the subject matter which revealed more than just sexual attraction. Using the traditional techniques of the Dutch masters, Klein Abensohn tackles societal, familial, and interpersonal dynamics -- from suggestive, generative allusions of sumptuous produce to pears that inhabit female archetypes. The most essential relationships, be they sexual, personal, familial, or racial are alluded to in her myriad of forms -- coyly, directly, ironically." Accessed 3/24

Michael Sherrill Retrospective is a 2019 exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum which says: "Sherrill's most recent work reveals his naturalist's sensitivity to botanical wonders, especially those outside his studio in the mountains of North Carolina. His floral forms have the allure of Martin Johnson Heade's passion flower and orchid paintings and the botanical engravings of John James Audubon, aligning his work with a long history of a reverence for nature in American art." Accessed 12/19

Natural Selections, an exhibit held at the Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy September 7, 2013 - March 16, 2014. Accessed 4/14

Out of the Woods is a 2018 exhibit at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens which says: "Organized by The New York Botanical Garden and the American Society of Botanical Artists, this traveling exhibition of original botanical artworks spotlights one of the planet's most important and beautiful resources-its trees-as cultivated by botanical gardens and arboreta. The exhibition highlights the role public gardens play in engaging visitors with trees and their ecological and utilitarian roles, and also underscores the conservation, research, and scholarship being undertaken by these institutions." Accessed 6/18

Paintings by Robert Kushner is a 2018 exhibit at the Sarah Moody Gallery which says: "Kushner (b. 1949) is an American painter known as a founder of the Pattern and Decoration art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Kushner's work combines organic representational elements with abstracted geometric forms in a way that is both decorative and modernist. Since the 1980s, he has used a full spectrum of color with gold, silver and patinated copper leaf to render the flowers and leaves, which have become his signature motif." Also see artist's website Accessed 3/18

Robert Zakanitch: Garden of Ornament is a 2017 exhibit at the Hudson River Museum which says: "Though his imagery varies - from abstract decoration to birds, angels, even author Jane Austen - Zakanitch has turned, again and again, to the shape and color of flowers to project these painterly motivations." Also see artist's website Accessed 8/17

Roland Reiss: Unapologetic Flowers and Small Stories is a 2018 exhibit at the Claremont Museum of Art which says: "The decision to focus on flowers, a subject generally undervalued in the history of painting, reflects the artist's ongoing determination to challenge himself, to push limits, to employ the breadth of his experience in compositions far more complicated than they first appear." Also on view will be "...the 'miniatures,' sculptural tableaux suggesting human dramas in familiar settings (1970s-90s)..." Also see artist's website Accessed 5/18

Sam van Aken: Streuobstwiese is a 2017 exhibit at Lafayette College Galleries which says: "The exhibition includes fruit trees removed from soil, exposing branch and root structure; van Aken's botanical illustrations; herbariam specimens, sanded stone fruit tree stumps that show the transition at the juncture of graft and trunk; and peach "whips" suspended from the ceiling." Also see artist's website Accessed 11/17

Scientific Wonders: Botanical Prints from the Lloyd Library and Museum a 2019 exhibit at the Zanesville Museum of Art which says: "Popularized during the Age of Enlightenment -- a period when science and reason were used to understand the universe -- these prints allowed intellectuals to explore the wonders of the plant kingdom." Accessed 4/19

Virginia Poundstone - Flower Mutations was a 2015 exhibit at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, which says: "Virginia Poundstone's practice spans photography, sculpture, video, and installation, and is exclusively focused on the history and botany of the flower and its socio-economic and cultural significance. Her exhibition at The Aldrich is dedicated to two important sources of inspiration: Giacomo Balla's series of Futurist Flowers and traditional American flower-pattern quilts." Also see the exhibit brochure in Issuu. Accessed 11/16

A potential source of Resource Library articles and essays is the North Carolina Arboretum, located in Asheville, North Carolina. The Arboretum features rotating exhibitions at the Baker Exhibit Center, many featuring botanical artists. Accessed May, 2015.

May, 2023 screenshots via Google video search:

(above: Martin Johnson Heade, Magnolia (detail), c. 1885-95, oil on canvas, 15 x 24 1/8 inches, Saint Louis Art Museum, gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Alden. Public domain*)

(above: John Marshall Gamble, Wild Heliotrope and Poppies, San Francisco, c. 1893 and 1906, oil on canvas, 20 ? 24 inches, Birmingham Museum of Art, given by Lucile Peters Graham in memory of Dr. and Mrs. U. J. W. Peters. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

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